Sanitary pad holder



July 9, 1957 D. E. FULLERTON 2,793,490

SANITARY PAD HOLDER Filed Aug. 30. 1954 IN V EN TOR.

16 flauz g E I/Z/LLEQTON,

United States Patent Ofifice 2,798,490 Patented July 9, 1957 SANITARY PAD HOLDER Dollie E. Fullerton, Victorville, Calif.

Application August 30, 1954, Serial No. 452,762

3 Claims. (Cl. 128-290) This invention has to do with improvements in supporters or holders for absorptive pads of the type and form generally used in feminine hygiene, and is directed particularly to a novel pad holder which has in addition to its supporting purpose, the function of a moisture impervious guard.

In addition to the practice of holding such pad to the wearer by mere attachment of the ends of the pad to at waist band, it has been proposed to support the pads upon or within a flexible holder, the ends of which may be fixedly or slidably attached to a waist band, i. e., an elastic band or belt designed to extend about the wearers waist, as distinguished from a lower hip location for which the present holder is designed. The prior art supports employing holders upon which the pad is carried, have had limited practieal'iility for various reasons, among which have been inconvenience and discomfort to the wearer because of bulkiness of the holder and designs which do not fit or conform unnoticeably to movements of the body. As examples, it has been proposed to make the pad and protective holder as one unit, which by reason of the attempt to combine both the pad and holder, renders the device too bulky and costly; where separately formed holders have been proposed, the holder material, though having in some instances the quality of being moisture impervious, has been too bulky either in the composition of the material itself, or the forms (folded flap, etc.) devised to retain or pocket the pad. And of whatever form or material, prior holders have involved an undesirable discomfort to the wearer by reason of their being so designed as to require use of a supporting band worn at waist height.

The invention presents a simple and effective device for accomplishing all the desirable objectives of a thoroughly practicable holder, i. e., assured support of the pad in proper position at all times, complete moisture imperviousness, absence of noticeable bulk, and formfitting characteristics rendering the support wearable with complete comfort.

All the features and objects of the invention, as well as the details of a typical embodiment thereof, will be more fully understood from the following description of the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. I shows the holder and elastic in the position in which it is worn;

Fig. 2 is a general view showing the holder sheet, pad, and elastic in sprcad-out arrangement to illustrate the construction; and

Fig. 3 is a similar view illustrating the conventional absorbent pad and holder separately.

Referring first to Fig. 3, as previously described, the holder sheet 10 formed preferably of l or 2 plies of thin moisture proof plastic, typically papenthin polyethylene sheet stock of about the weight customarily used in packaging, may be reinforced at its side edges 11 by folded-over hems secured by stitching or heat sealing. The ends 12 are similarly folded-over, but at greater hem width to accommodate centrally positioned opening: formed by inserted eyelets 13 or simply by making sealed or fused edge openings in the plastic sheet. Viewed longitudinally, the sheet has its side edges converging from the ends toward the center of the sheet, for better conformability to the wearer. Whether the body of the holder includes one or two thicknesses of the sheet plastic, the complete flexibility and thinness of the plastic adds no noticeable bulk to the pad itself.

The holder sheet is held to the wearer by elastic bands 14 which may be somewhat flattened in cross-section, having fixed attachment at. 15 to the corners of the sheet. Such attachment may be made by sewing or the use of any appropriate kind of fastening device.

The described holder is designed to accommodate the usual absorptive pad, generally indicated at 16, used in feminine hygiene. The pad may have an absorptive center filling enclosed within an open mesh cloth 17, the ends 18 of which extend freely and loosely so as to be capable of easy insertion through the openings 13, as shown in Fig. 2. When thus inserted through the holder Openings, each free end 18 may be tied in a loose knot to hold the pad ends to the corresponding end of the holder sheet. This method of: securing the pad in place is one of quick simplicity, involving the use of no pins or other special fastening devices, and it affords the advantage of enabling the end of the pad to be brought with desired closeness to the end of the holder, which is particularly desirable at the front as the holder is worn.

Reference previously has been had to the fact that the holder is designed so as to require that the elastic loops l4 ride low on the wearers hips, instead of in the more usual manner of a waist band. Such c onform ability of the elastic follows from limiting the length of the holder sheet 10 so that as worn, the ends of the sheet will be sutliciently low to require that the elastic bands assume a correspondingly low position. While the specific relation of the holder to the wearers form Will depend upon the holder length and the proportions of the wearer, it is found thatv the desired position in which the holder and pad are to be worn can be praeticably assured by making the holders and their elastics in a few sizes, say small, medium, and large, to be worn respectively by persons having those size ranges. And in general, assurance of the positioning of the elastic substantially as shown in Fig. 1, can be had by limiting the lengths of the holder sheets for all sizes, so as not to exceed 16 inches. The length of the smallest size may be in the neighborhood of about 13 inches.

I claim:

1. A sanitary pad holder consisting essentially of an elongated holder sheet made of paper-thin freely flexible moisture-impervious plastic material, said material being doubled upon itself to form hems along the ends of the sheet, elastic bands extending opposite the sides of the sheet and attached to said hems, and eyelets forming openings centrally positioned in said hems for receiving and retaining the open mesh cloth of a conventional sanitary pad, the length of said sheet and bands being sufficiently short that the bands extend about the hips and below the waistline of the wearer.

2. A holder as defined in claim 1, in which the sheet has a closed hem extending along the entire periphery of the sheet.

3. A holder as defined in claim 1, in which said eyelets are formed by fusing the edges of said openings.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

